UPEI hosting flag football nationals

Prince Edward Island will play Nova Scotia for bronze today at 1 p.m. at the under-16 boys flag football national championships in Charlottetown.

The Summerside Raiders lost 27-19 to Saskatchewan in semifinal play on Sunday morning at UPEI. Summerside entered with a 1-4-1 record while Saskatchewan was 4-1-0.

“If you would have told our team before the game that we had the ball last and a chance to tie it up we would have taken it,” said Raiders coach John Turner. “We put a real good scare into Saskatchewan. The boys played hard, played the best game we played so far in the tournament.”

The Raiders had the ball five yards from the end zone twice, but came away without points.

“The boys didn’t give up,” Turner said.

Saskatchewan led 14-7 at halftime and scored a touchdown on their first play of the second half.

Assistant coach Trevor Bridges said the game plan was to make sure Saskatchewan earned their yards on offence.

“They made one big play on us on the sideline in the first half and one big play on us in the second half,” he said. “Those are the two defining plays of the game. We made them work all game long.”

Bridges said it took a team effort to push to within a score of going to the championship game.

“Everyone did what was expected of them, that’s why the game was as close as it was,” he said. “Everybody had a job to do. . . and they all did their own role really well.”

This is Bridges’ fourth year at nationals and he said the Island squad always plays well against the larger provinces, despite having a smaller player pool to draw from.